“I think he was only seeing me to get information about you, but I didn’t realize it until it was too late.” I just nod, not sure if I fully believe her story. “Do you think you can forgive me?”
I don’t want to, but who am I to withhold forgiveness? “I’llconsider it,” I say, before shutting my bedroom door in her face. I look back at my suspect board for a while, before taking Adrienne’s photo and name from the board.
I meet everyone at Water Street Tavern, and to my surprise, Asher is here. The bruises on his face have almost healed. I resist the urge to touch them when we’re standing at the bar together.
“What?” he says, catching me looking at him from the corner of my eye.
“Nothing,” I whisper, as the bartender hands him a beer and he walks away. Wes comes up beside me then.
“Still taking things slow, right?”
“Yes,” I say, looking back at the group. “Definitely.”
“So, I can’t do this?” Wes inches closer to me so our shoulders are touching, and I have a flashback of last semester when Asher and I stood here like this watching Wes and Marissa from across the bar.
I give a nervous laugh. “Um, maybe just that, for now.”
I feel like a virgin again with a boyfriend pressuring me for sex. Not that Wes is pressuring me, but I’m sure he found it off-putting the last two times he’s tried, and I told him I was on my period, or I wasn’t feeling good.
We aren’t in a relationship; we’re just... I don’t even know what we are. Hanging out, I guess. I had to make it very clear that it can’t look like we’re rushing into anything, especially not in front of Annica. But what I really meant was not in front of Asher.
I get my drink and go back to the group, leaving Wes by the bar.
“I can’t believe we’re friends with the actual Pembroke Psycho,”Jake says. Marissa’s TikToks and the PC gossip page have finally made their way to the rest of my friend group. Wes still hasn’t brought it up to me, though.
“None of what’s on the gossip page is true,” I say.
“Well, that’s good,” Charlie says. “Would really suck if you were murdering your exes. Asher would be a goner.”
“Looks like she already tried to get to him,” Jake teases about the bruises on Asher’s face.
Asher doesn’t say anything.
“Well, don’t you guys know? Asher and Sloane were never really together. It was one big charade. Just a show for his family to win him some brownie points.”
I stare daggers at Annica, though I never explicitly told her to keep that to herself. I just haven’t had the chance to tell Wes that. I watch his face fall when he comes back to the table and hears it.
“Looks like it didn’t work though,” she says before taking a sip of her drink.
My mouth falls open. I don’t ask how she knows about Ben. I assume Wes told her.
“You aresucha cunt,” Asher says to her.
“Takes one to know one,” Annica says back.
“Okay, okay,” I interrupt. “Let’s not do this here.”
“This is what happens when the balance of the group is ruined,” she says to me. And I want to say that everything was fine before she opened her mouth and if anything is upsetting a balance right now it’s her, but I’m on thin ice with everyone, so I stay quiet.
“I’m going to grab us all some shots,” Jake says.
“Yeah, I’ll go with you,” Sam says, and follows.
“Oh, I love this song.” Charlie looks at Dani. “Let’s go dance.”
Asher gets up and leaves the bar. Wes, Annica, and I are all that’s left at the table.
“Happy?” Annica says to me.
